The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity.
--
The Devil's Disciple, Act II (1901).George Bernard Shaw
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It is a century now since Darwin gave us the first glimpse of the origin of species. We know now what was unknown to all the preceding caravan of generations: that men are only fellow-voyagers with other creatures in the odyssey of evolution. This new knowledge should have given us, by this time, a sense of kinship with fellow-creatures; a wish to live and let live; a sense of wonder over the magnitude and duration of the biotic enterprise.
Aldo Leopold
The connection between facts and values is straightforward and philosophically uninteresting... values reduce to facts about the well-being of conscious creatures; the well-being of conscious creatures is what can be valued in this universe... Now, here’s the one bit of philosophy I’m going to anchor this too: imagine a universe in which every conscious creature suffers as much as it can for as long as it can — I call this the worst possible misery for everyone. The worst possible misery for everyone is bad. If the word bad is to mean anything, surely it applies to the worst possible misery for everyone... the moment you grant me that the worst possible misery for everyone is bad and therefore worth avoiding... well then you have every other possible constellation of conscious experience which, by definition, is better. So you have this continuum here of states of consciousness and given that consciousness is related to the way the universe is, it’s constrained by the laws of nature in some way, there are going to be right and wrong ways to move along this continuum... now this is, in philosophy, a somewhat controversial statement. I do not see how.
Sam Harris
A Jewish convert said to me once, "The Communists hate God, and the Catholics love Him. But they are both facing Him, directing their attention to Him. They are not indifferent. Communists are not in so bad a case as those who are indifferent. It it the lukewarm that He will spew out of His mouth."
Dorothy Day
Acceptance of the Catholic position implies a certain willingness to see the present injustices of society continue... Individual salvation implies liberty, which is always extended by Catholic writers to include the right to private property. But in the stage of industrial development which we have now reached, the right to private property means the right to exploit and torture millions of one's fellow creatures. The Socialist would argue, therefore, that one can only defend property if one is more or less indifferent to economic justice.
George Orwell
The world will rightfully be upset over so much inhumanity, and a hate will burn that can never be extinguished. How long will this reign of terror continue?
Friedrich Kellner
Shaw, George Bernard
Shaw, Roy
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